• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.35-55
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to examine not only students' cognition in the mathematical error-finding activity of the concept of irrational numbers, but also the students' learning stance regarding the use of errors and a teacher's questioning strategies that lead to changes in the level of mathematical discourse. To this end, error-finding individual activities, group activities, and additional interviews were conducted with 133 middle school students, and students' cognition and the teacher's questioning strategies for changes in students' learning stance and levels of mathematical discourse were analyzed. As a result of the study, students' cognition focuses on the symbolic representation of irrational numbers and the representation of decimal numbers, and they recognize the existence of irrational numbers on a number line, but tend to have difficulty expressing a number line using figures. In addition, the importance of the teacher's leading and exploring questioning strategy was observed to promote changes in students' learning stance and levels of mathematical discourse. This study is valuable in that it specified the method of using errors in mathematics teaching and learning and elaborated the teacher's questioning strategies in finding mathematical errors.